US Census from Great Depression to be released

Still, finding a name in the 3.8 million digitized images won’t be as easy as a Google search: It could be at least six months after the release before a nationwide name index is created.

In the meantime, researchers will need an address to determine a census enumeration district — a way to carve up the map for surveying — to identify where someone lived and then browse the records.

Some experts said enthusiasm for the release could be dampened by the lack of a name index, especially for novices.

“It may very well frustrate the newcomers,” said Thomas Macentee, an industry analyst helping recruit volunteers for a name indexing effort sponsored in part by the Mormon-run FamilySearch.org. “It’s like showing up on Black Friday. If you really want that TV set, if you really want that census record, you are going to be ready to go and you are going to keep at it no matter what.”

Publicly-traded Ancestry.com, which has over 1.7 million customers, is also working to make the census records searchable by indexing almost all fields and providing proprietary tools to mine the data.

Josh Hanna, a senior adviser for the company, said the 1940 census will be the biggest database of its kind. “It’ll be the deepest level of indexing we’ve ever done,” he said. Access to the index and tools will be available for free through the end of 2013.

Other individuals and organizations across the country are also working to ease the use of the records, including the New York Public Library, which is digitizing the full set of New York City’s 1940 telephone books to help people locate addresses.

Genealogy societies and libraries also have been holding packed workshops to educate their members.

In January, about three dozen people gathered in Manhattan for a meeting of the MetroNY Genealogy & Computers Special Interest Group to discuss the census. They included Michelle Novak, who has spent six years searching for information about her paternal grandfather, but has no street address to help locate him.

Novak, 43, said family members recalled him as a heavy drinker who worked long hours for the Pennsylvania Railroad and abandoned his family in the early 1930s.

But the few records she has been able to find include a signature in a railroad pension book. She believes the 1940 census might hold additional answers.

“If I can find one record, anything, it may help,” she said in an email after the meeting. “Even if I find him in jail or deceased, at least I will have an answer.”